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我們無法量入為出，使美國不堪一擊
作者：凱拉·斯坎倫 2026年3月12日
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/opinion/trump-america-first-debt.html
斯坎倫女士是《紐約時報》特約評論員，著有《在這個經濟環境下？貨幣和市場究竟如何運作》一書，並創辦了《凱拉通訊》。
美國正深陷債務泥潭。債務規模多年來不斷攀升，甚至幾十年來持續增長，但特朗普總統及其國會盟友又為其增添了巨額債務。
在2025財年，美國支出約7萬億美元，稅收收入約5.2萬億美元。這意味著1.8萬億美元的資金缺口亟待填補。
這給如今標榜自身偉大並以孤立主義為準則、經常疏遠甚至侮辱（或更糟）全球夥伴的政府帶來了巨大的壓力，因為沒有其他國家的支持，它就無法維持運轉。這兩個相互矛盾的事實構成了美國債務問題的核心。
這就是為什麽“美國優先”在財政上行不通。毫無疑問，美國目前還能找到債務買家——但隨著世界其他國家重新審視與特朗普總統的合作方式，這些交易的成本和條款正在發生變化。
“美國優先”實際上是在邀請世界利用我們的債務來對付我們。
政府通過出售國債來籌集資金以彌補赤字，這些國債承諾在未來一段時間內向投資者償還本金和利息。2025財年，美國的公共債務超過30萬億美元，其中相當一部分債務每年都會到期，必須按照當時的利率進行再融資。因此，如果利率上升，每年的償債成本也會隨之攀升——而且隨著更多債務的周轉，成本還會繼續攀升。隻要全球投資者持續購買，這個體係就能維持運轉。
這就是美國資本市場的運作方式。曆史上，每個人都想持有少量的美國資產。2025年11月，外國投資者持有的美國國債超過9.3萬億美元，創曆史新高。日本仍然是最大的持有國債持有國。英國位居第二，中國大陸位居第三，盡管過去十年中國大陸的持倉有所減少。
外國投資者參與美國國債市場至關重要，原因有二：一是降低了美國的借貸成本，二是擴大了美國的初始借貸能力。
外國買家實際上降低了美國的借貸成本，因為他們提供了更多需求，從而降低了利率。如果隻有美國投資者購買國債，那麽為了吸引國內買家，利率就必須上升，美國的借貸成本也會隨之上升。外國投資者扮演著緩衝者的角色，他們吸收美國債務，使美國能夠將資金用於醫療保健和社會保障。
這也使得美國能夠承擔僅靠自身力量根本無法償還的財政赤字。財政部每年必須發行數萬億美元的新債券才能彌補赤字，這還不包括即將到期且必須進行再融資的數萬億美元現有債務。如果沒有外國買家競相購買這些債券，國內投資者就必須全部承擔，而他們會要求更高的利率，這將波及所有消費貸款。
因此，美國必須通過外國政府、主權財富基金和私人機構在其他地方尋找買家。這在很大程度上是一種優勢，而非缺陷。但這同時也意味著，當你向世界借款時，你的借貸成本部分取決於世界經濟。
此外，美國還是最後的債務吸收者。像中國這樣的盈餘經濟體生產超過其消費，並將盈餘以儲蓄的形式輸出。這些儲蓄必須有去處，而幾十年來，答案一直是美國國債。資本湧入，美元保持強勢，美國吸收了世界其他國家無法在國內消費的大部分資金。這就是作為世界儲備貨幣的代價。
幾十年來，美國作為吸金者、借貸者和消費者的角色，運作得異常成功。美國受益於經濟學家所謂的“過度特權”——美元的主導地位意味著全球投資者除了美國國債之外幾乎沒有其他可行的選擇。當世界任何地方出現不確定性時，資金都會流向美國，而不是流出。外國需求並不要求美國完美無缺，隻需要其保持可靠的開放和穩定即可。
但如今，這一假設正受到來自多方麵的考驗。世界其他國家正在尋求更好的選擇，並有更充分的理由將資本留在國內。
日本就是一個很好的例子。它是美國最大的外國投資者。日本投資者持有超過1萬億美元的美國國債。但日本自身經濟正處於轉折點。日本央行一直在提高利率以控製通脹。過去一年，日元已出現反彈跡象。
或者說，情況大致如此。屆時，日本投資者將更有理由將資金留在國內，而那些借入日元購買美國資產的全球投資者也將開始平倉。這將導致美國借貸成本上行——並非出於任何政治決策，而是因為市場邏輯發生了變化。
歐洲的情況也類似。多年來，歐洲投資者一直是美國國債的穩定買家。但如今，歐洲正在增加自身借貸以資助國防開支，並經曆一段放鬆管製的時期。隨著歐洲債券市場的發展壯大，全球投資者將有更多投資選擇。這意味著美國以外的全球儲蓄市場將麵臨更激烈的競爭。
因此，除了美國資本市場之外，還存在著其他重要的投資選擇，這威脅到了美國國債的地位，同時也存在著退出美國市場的威脅。歐洲人正在討論拋售他們持有的美國國債。歐洲持有超過3萬億美元的美國國債，麵對美國經濟的波動，關於“資本武器化”的討論也越來越多。如果歐洲選擇出售，這將提高美國政府的資金成本。（總統已經威脅要采取報複措施。）
世界其他國家選擇彼此合作，而不是與美國打交道。印度與歐盟之間龐大的貿易協定，中國與加拿大之間的戰略夥伴關係——世界其他國家正在表明，美國不再是首選。
我們現在就有一個活生生的例子：伊朗戰爭。隨著霍爾木茲海峽實際上被封鎖，油價飆升（然後下跌，然後再次飆升）。沒有人知道哪邊漲哪邊跌——一切都顯得魯莽。
債券市場以另一種方式表達了同樣的觀點。曆史上，地緣政治危機通常會促使投資者湧入美國國債尋求避險，因此收益率會隨著價格上漲而下降。但這次並沒有發生這種情況。相反，由於對通脹的擔憂，收益率上升：石油供應中斷加劇，通脹加劇，國防赤字增加，國債發行量增加。戰爭升級時收益率飆升，直到局勢出現緩和跡象才回落。投資者幾十年來一直依賴的避險資產並未出現。
這對必須融資的巨額美國債務意味著什麽？
這些債務很可能繼續融資——但代價是什麽？又由誰來承擔？我們享有的“特權”依賴於對美國機構的信任、穩定的政策、一致的信息傳遞以及對美國仍然是安全投資之地的信心。目前，世界其他地區更高的投資回報率以及美國國內“美國不需要世界其他國家”的言論正在威脅著這一切。
當政策溝通出現分歧——例如商務部長稱美元走弱“更自然”，而財政部長卻堅持強勢美元政策——當美聯儲的獨立性成為真正的擔憂，當外交政策變得混亂無序時，這向美國所依賴的全球投資者發出信號：某些重要的事情可能正在發生轉變。
人們都在談論減少對外國資本的依賴。但美國光靠空談是無法實現這一目標的。
更重要——也更可控——的是信任。信任是美國低成本借貸能力的真正基礎。正是信任吸引外國資本來到這裏。任何美國不再認為自己受製於自身製定的規則的信號，都會削弱這種信任。一旦信任喪失，代價將波及國內，導致更高的抵押貸款、汽車貸款和信用卡利率，以及一個無力承擔自身雄心壯誌的政府。
圖片來源：Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images。
特約評論員Kyla Scanlon著有《在這個經濟環境下？貨幣與市場究竟如何運作》一書，並訂閱了Kyla的時事通訊。
Our Inability to Live Within Our Means Makes the U.S. Vulnerable
America is drowning in debt. It has expanded over years and even decades, but President Trump and his allies in Congress have piled on a giant new load.
In fiscal year 2025, the United States spent roughly $7 trillion and collected about $5.2 trillion in tax revenue. That leaves a $1.8 trillion gap that has to be closed.
This creates an enormous tension for an administration that now claims greatness as isolationism and regularly alienates and insults (or worse) global peers, but that cannot finance itself without the support of other countries. These two opposing facts operate at the center of the American debt story.
That is why “America first” does not make sense financially. The United States will no doubt, for the time being, find buyers of its debt — but the cost and terms of those exchanges are shifting as the rest of the world reconsiders its arrangements with President Trump’s way of doing business.
“America first” is inviting the world to use our debt as a weapon against us.
The government borrows the amount of our deficit by selling Treasury securities, I.O.U.s that promise to pay investors back with interest over time. The United States carried over $30 trillion in publicly held debt in fiscal year 2025, and a significant chunk of that debt matures every year and has to be refinanced at whatever interest rates exist at that moment. So if rates rise, the annual cost of servicing the debt climbs, too — and keeps climbing as more debt turns over. The system holds together as long as the world keeps buying.
And that’s how U.S. capital markets work. Historically, everyone has wanted to own a little bit of the United States. Foreign investors held a record high of over $9.3 trillion in U.S. Treasuries in November 2025. Japan remains the largest holder. Britain is second, and mainland China is third, even after reducing its holdings over the past decade.
This foreign participation in U.S. Treasury markets is really important for two main reasons: It lowers what the United States pays to borrow, and it expands how much the United States can borrow in the first place.
Foreign buyers functionally lower U.S. borrowing costs because they provide more demand, resulting in lower rates. If only U.S. investors were buying Treasuries, interest rates would have to rise to attract domestic buyers and borrowing prices would rise for America. Foreign investors act as a shock absorber, taking in U.S. debt and allowing the country to spend money on health care and Social Security.
This also allows the United States to run deficits that would be impossible for us to finance alone. The Treasury has to sell trillions in new securities each year just to cover the deficit, before accounting for the trillions in existing debt that mature and must be refinanced. Without foreign buyers competing for that paper, domestic investors would need to absorb it all, and they would demand significantly higher interest rates to do so, which would ripple into all consumer loans.
So the United States has to find buyers elsewhere through foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds and private institutions. This is largely a feature, not a bug. But it means that when you borrow from the world, your borrowing costs depend partly on the world.
Also, the United States is the absorber of last resort. Surplus economies like China produce more than they consume and export the difference as savings. Those savings have to go somewhere, and for decades, the answer was U.S. Treasuries. Capital flowed in, the dollar stayed strong, and the United States absorbed much of what the rest of the world couldn’t spend at home. That is the price of running the world’s reserve currency.
All of this — the United States as a sponge, borrower and spender — has worked remarkably well for decades. The United States benefited from something economists call “exorbitant privilege” — the dollar’s dominance meant global investors had few viable alternatives to U.S. Treasuries. When uncertainty hit anywhere in the world, money flowed toward America, not away from it. Foreign demand didn’t require the United States to be perfectly managed, just reliably open and stable.
But that assumption is now being tested from multiple directions. The rest of the world is developing better options and better reasons to keep capital at home.
Japan is a good example. It is the largest foreign investor in the United States. Japanese investors hold more than $1 trillion in Treasuries. But Japan is at a turning point in its own economy. The Bank of Japan has been raising interest rates to keep inflation under control. The yen has shown signs of rebounding over the past year or so. When that happens, Japanese investors will have better reason to keep capital at home, and global investors who borrowed in yen to buy U.S. assets start unwinding those positions. The result will be upward pressure on U.S. borrowing costs — not because of any political decision but because the math changed.
It’s a similar story with Europe. European investors have been steady buyers of U.S. debt for years. But Europe is now increasing its own borrowing to fund defense spending and going through a period of deregulation. As Europe builds out a deeper bond market, global investors will have more choices about where to put their money. That means there will be more competition for global savings outside the United States.
So there are significant alternatives to U.S. capital markets, which threaten the status of Treasuries, and there are also threats of exit. Europeans are talking of selling their U.S. Treasuries. Europe holds over $3 trillion in Treasuries, and there has been increasing talk of “weaponization of capital” in the face of U.S. volatility. If Europe does choose to sell, that would raise the cost of capital for the U.S. government. (The president has already threatened to retaliate.)
The rest of the world is choosing to deal with one another rather than the United States. The enormous trade pact between India and the European Union, the strategic partnership between China and Canada — the rest of the world is showing that the United States isn’t the first stop anymore.
We now have a live example: the Iran war. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil prices surged (and then fell and then surged again). No one knew which way was up or down — it all seemed reckless.
The bond market made the same point in a different language. Historically, geopolitical crises send investors rushing into U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven, so yields fall as prices rise. That didn’t happen this time. Instead, yields rose on inflation fears: more oil disruption, more inflation, more deficit spending on defense, more Treasury issuance. Yields spiked when the war escalated and pulled back only when de-escalation looked possible. The safe-haven response that investors have relied on for decades failed to materialize.
And what does that mean for the boatload of U.S. debt that has to be financed?
It will likely continue to be financed — but at what cost and on whose terms? Our “exorbitant privilege” depends on trust in U.S. institutions, stable policy, consistent messaging and confidence that America remains a safe place to invest money. This is currently being threatened by the rest of the world generating better returns and by domestic U.S. rhetoric that America does not need the rest of the world.
When there are policy miscommunications — like the commerce secretary saying a weaker dollar is “more natural” while the Treasury secretary insists on a strong dollar policy — when Federal Reserve independence becomes a real point of concern and when foreign policy becomes chaotic and unplanned, that signals to the global investors America depends on that something important may be shifting.
There is a lot of talk about reducing reliance on foreign capital. But the United States cannot get there through rhetoric alone.
What is more important — and controllable — is trust. Trust is the actual asset underlying America’s ability to borrow cheaply. It was what made foreign capital want to come here. Every signal that America no longer considers itself bound by the rules it wrote chips away at that asset. When it goes, the costs will hit at home, landing in higher mortgage, car loan and credit card rates, and a government that can no longer afford its own ambitions.
Source photographs by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images.
Kyla Scanlon, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of “In This Economy? How Money & Markets Really Work” and Kyla’s Newsletter.
